The phrase “1980s horror” connotes a certain VHS aisle of franchised faces: Freddy, Jason, Chucky, Michael Myers, Pinhead. Far from that pack, like the anti-social loner of John McNaughton’s 1986 landmark film, we have Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer. Henry looks like a guy you’d actually see on a police lineup, intimidating but anonymous. As conceived by McNaughton and co-screenwriter Richard Fire, Henry lives in a nondescript Chicago apartment, works part time as an exterminator, and, in his spare time, kills people with nauseating ease. McNaughton films the carnage with a radical matter-of-factness, stripping an ostensible horror film of […]
by Soheil Rezayazdi on Oct 20, 2016In 1985, a pair of brothers who owned a video equipment rental business in Chicago offered local filmmaker John McNaughton $100,000 in financing if he could come up with a low-budget horror movie. They probably got a little more than they bargained for when McNaughton delivered Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, a chilling (though also blackly comic) character study loosely based on the experiences of real life sociopath Henry Lee Lucas. McNaughton eschewed slasher movie conventions in favor of an ultra-realistic, serious-minded film with no escape hatch for the audience; one of the greatest cinematic representations of the banality […]
by Jim Hemphill on Aug 19, 2015Now in its nineteenth year, the Fantasia International Film Festival is known as one of the premier destinations for exciting genre cinema. With a focus primarily on horror, Asian genre fare, and more indescribable film art, this three-week Montreal festival annually takes over Concordia University and other venues to entertain in provocative fashion. And while there are many goings-on taking place concurrently within the city (such as the massive Just For Laughs comedy fest and Osheaga’s live music performances), Fantasia always seems to hold a special place in the province of Quebec. “We’re not a subtle event,” co-director Mitch Davis noted […]
by Erik Luers on Jul 31, 2015